How to find your passion in life

Having passion in life gives us direction. 

It gives us motivation each day as we wake up in the morning ready to face the challenges ahead of us. On the contrary, having no passion in life makes us live like zombies where we just tend to follow what other people are doing, observing what is the trend and following it. 

I remember reading an article which talks about the things dying people regret the most in life. One of which is not doing the things that really mattered to them. Instead they do things which is what other people would want from them. The result is its like you lived a life that is not truly yours, a fake one I may say. Sad but true.

Successful people have one way or another identified their passion in life and used it to achieve greater things. Take the case of Warren Buffet who is regarded as the world's greatest investor. He always had that passion for investing ever since he was young. Another example is Steve Jobs and his passion for making a difference. His innovations made our lives better. 

For those who haven't found or are not yet sure what there passion is, let me tell you one technique to identify your passion in life. This was shared by my business mentor when I attended one of his seminars. One should imagine that in this world all jobs will have the same salary and there will be only one currency. Let's say the currency will be in US dollars and let's say the monthly salary for everyone would be 1,000 dollars regardless of the job you have. What job would you want to do? 

This scenario would force you to choose the job that you truly love. And since you enjoy doing it that you don't even consider it as a job. That's where success comes after.

I hope this post helped you in a way to find your passion in life.

What is a big net worth if you don't have passive income?

I was in the office and searching some quotable quotes about financial management when there was this quote that struck me. It says "What is a big net worth if you don't have passive income?"

It struck me since I was this person. My net worth though is not that big but I know that I still don't have passive income. Yes my mutual funds have earned but those earnings are just in paper. Unless I liquidate it it's nothing but a number. That's why I got more convinced that what I'm doing now is right at least based on one of the goals I want to achieve in life. I'm putting most of my hard earned money on real estate with the goal of turning these properties into cash cows. Rental income from my properties will give me passive income in the future which will set me free financially. That is what I'm looking forward.

I withdrew some of my money in mutual funds and invested it in real estate. I remember listening to Robert Kiyosaki's teachings in youtube. He was telling that money working as currencies which tend to fluctuate in value everyday should be immediately invested in a real asset like real estate. Money working as currency will lose its value the longer you don't do anything with it. It made sense.

Debt Challenge

I challenge you to eliminate your debt! 

This is a big fundamental in building wealth. By the way, we are talking about bad debt here. In case you don't know, there are two types of debt. There is good debt and bad debt. A good debt is a debt in which somebody is paying that debt for you. An example of this is when you bought a real estate property let's say a condo unit and you had it rented out. In this case, you had the tenant pay your condo unit's monthly amortization. You indeed have a debt through your bank loan however your tenant is the one paying it through the rental income you receive each month making your loan a good debt. Having good debt is a good way of leveraging which is very essential in building wealth.

On the other hand, a bad debt is a debt that you're the one paying. Imagine the same scenario above but for some reason you were not able to get a tenant to rent you condo unit. This debt becomes a bad debt since you'll be obliged to pay the monthly amortization. It takes money away from you pocket. Really good investors don't really pay or at least put out a lot of money in order to acquire assets. They're usually very good in leveraging with banks.

So let's get back to eliminating debt. Whenever I say the word debt here, what I really mean is bad debt. It takes a lot of commitment and discipline in order to get rid of debt. I remember back around 5 years ago when I had a debt of around 100 thousand pesos I accumulated from using my credit card. I know it's not that big of a debt but who knows how big it will get if I did not decide to get rid of it right? I'm the kind of a logical person so I get stressed if I see some issues or problems around me. I know if I don't take care of these issues logically it will hunt me down in the future that's why I intend to resolve these issues... financial issues to be exact.

After attending the IMG seminar and learning that elimination of debt is one of the foundations of building wealth, I had a realization. I thought to myself that if I was able to build this big of a debt (for me it was already big at that time) then I should be able to build this much for savings instead. I twisted it around. So at that time around 2010 I decided to eliminate my debt and instead just build my savings equivalent to the debt I once had which is around 100 thousand pesos. I made the problem a challenge for me to overcome and it went well for me. From that point in time until now, I can honestly and proudly say that I have zero debt. I'm on my way to get some good debt though since I have to get loan to finance my real estate investments.

I have heard countless of debt stories throughout my life. I even had a good friend of mine who accumulated a lot of debt during his 9 years of working abroad. It's so sad to think about it and there's nothing I could do as a friend to help him solve his financial problem. All I know is I learn a lot from this stories and experiences and I take action to things that I can control like debt elimination. I feel good and free knowing that I don't have any bad debt to worry about. I may not have the latest gadget and branded and cool clothes my friends and colleagues have but what I do have though is peace of mind and that for me is priceless. I know for a fact that I will be able to afford it in time if I stay patient, committed and disciplined towards my goals in life.

To end this blog post, I challenge you to eliminate your debt and instead turn it into savings. To illustrate, if you have a debt of 300 thousand pesos, I challenge you to eliminate it for one year or as fast as you can and on the following year is you have to build a savings of 300 thousand pesos and build it from there. I tell you that it's gonna be worth it and it will forever change your life financially.

Be the Chosen One. Be the one to cut the chains of poverty.

Even though the Philippines is considered to be a newly industrialized country (NIC) because of good governance and consistent economic growth we still can't deny the fact that a lot of our fellow filipinos are suffering from poverty. One of the known causes of this is due to rapid population growth. And this can be very scary now that our country is gaining a lot of momentum in terms of economic growth. Sooner or later the gap between poor families and rich families would be too much for the government to handle or manage. No matter how good or bad our government is, it can only do so much in terms of making our lives better.

We should also take responsibility for our lives instead of depending too much on the government because it will never happen. Sadly some of our fellow filipinos think that way. They often would blame the Philippine government for their shortcomings in life. The change should start from ourselves first. There's no other way.

One may find oneself belonging in a family suffering from poverty. It's definitely not your fault if you were born poor. However, it will be your fault if you don't take any action to correct it and later on you still die being poor. That I believe should be the worst case. 

I used to remember my college batch mate. He's mom works as a sewer while he's father works as a construction worker. He has one younger brother. I know they were not doing well financially because I can see that he doesn't have enough money to buy food during our snack break. We were close friends that's why sometimes he would tell stories about their financial situation and it was humbling to listen to his stories.

One thing I will not forget is when he told me the story about telling his parents stopping them in having another baby. The reason he told his parents this is that they are already living a hard life because of their financial situation and adding another member to the family will just put them in deeper hole financially. Nonetheless, he was able to convince his mom to have ligation. 

I do agree with him while I listened intently to his story. If only most of our poor filipino families would think like my friend our country will lessen the negative effects of having lots of poor families. At the same time these families are over-sized so it's even much difficult for them to have a better quality of life. Because of lack of education and lack of money to support their basic needs, some would resort to selling or using drugs for boys or committing crime in order to survive and girls would resort to prostitution. These are just some of the common negative effects of overpopulation and poverty combined.

We need more of our countrymen to be more of a proactive instead of just being reactive. Being proactive means being reactive too but doing it just ahead of time thus controlling the outcome of an incident that is bound to happen. Reactive, on the other hand means you only react after the incident already happened. 

In my example, my college friend already knew the effects of their parents having another baby. He already pictured out what will happen to them and he decided to change this outcome. It's a very rare trait that is worth emulating. Right now this friend of mine is also in the I.T. industry and just got engaged. I'm confident he will have a better life in the future because of how he thinks in a proactive way.

Now, if you're from a poor family, challenge yourself to step up and be the one to cut the chains of poverty. Be proactive instead of being reactive. Be the one to cut the chains of poverty in your family and you will forever be remembered for this. Your children and children's children will talk about you and tell stories on how you made there lives better. This is the legacy you will be leaving them.

How about if you're not from a poor family? Then you can still challenge yourself to be better than what your parents have accomplished. After all, what is life if we just live within our comfort zones. It is through getting out of comfort zones that we can improve ourselves. Lastly, ask yourself what legacy you will be leaving when you leave this earth. All of us will die someday, and he who have left a legacy will have a meaningful life.